


[sic]

by Phoebonica



Category: Among Us (Video Game)
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Green's a geologist not a soldier, It's Not Paranoia If They're Really Out To Get You, Paranoia, Polus (Among Us), Terrible Gun Safety, Whumptober 2020, don't point flare guns at people, hypervigilance really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:33:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27086377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoebonica/pseuds/Phoebonica
Summary: Green thinks Blue's overreacting. She can't blame him for it, after what they've been through.Blue really, really hopes she's right.But sometimes even the smallest details can be life or death.For Whumptober 2020, day 18. Prompt was 'paranoia'.
Comments: 16
Kudos: 24
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	[sic]

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this because I wanted to see if I could make the detail the fic revolves around into an actual serious plot point. I hope I succeeded.

The door to the crewmate dorms slammed open and Green screamed, scrambling out of bed and grabbing the flare gun beside her pillow.

“Green! Green, it’s okay, it’s me!”

Blue raised his hands, taking a step to the side from his position in the doorway, leaving Green a clear path to the exit. If she’d needed to run. Which she didn’t, because it was Blue. It was just Blue. Not something else wearing his skin. It was over. It was all over now and tomorrow they’d be on their way home. Away from Polus, and the cold, and the memories. Away from the storage shed where she'd stumbled on Red's dismembered body, their leader the first to be slaughtered, and away from the lava pit where she and Blue had thrown the struggling, snarling thing with Purple’s face, and away from every nightmare in between.

“Blue, what the hell?” She lowered the gun, her hands trembling. Vitals no doubt going crazy, if anyone had been left to monitor them. “Don’t barge in like that, you scared the crap out of me! I could have shot you!”

“I know, I’m sorry, look…” Blue moved cautiously over to one of the nearby beds and sat down, keeping a comfortable distance, hands where Green could see them. “I need to show you something. That last message from HQ… I realised what was bugging me about it.”

“...yeah?” Green sat down on her own bed, setting the flare gun down carefully beside her on the thin mattress, making sure that it pointed _away_ from either her or Blue. “What was it?”

Blue started to reach behind himself, then paused. “I’m gonna take it out of my pack, okay?” he said quietly, and Green nodded. She hadn’t really thought that those hands would come back with a knife, or a gun. They’d watched each other run a full body scan in medbay, after everything. Blue was clean. So was she.

But the fear was still there, and they both understood that.

Blue took a folded printout from his bag and opened it, turning it around for Green to read. “Here, look…” He pointed to the spot on the paper he’d already marked, a few words heavily circled in red pen. “You see it?”

Green squinted at the paper. It didn’t look any more strange to her than it had before. It looked like salvation. There’d be a ship here to pick them up at 09:00 local time tomorrow morning (or _this_ morning, by now). She read over the highlighted words again, her brow furrowing.

_...no imposters remaining within the..._

She shook her head, sitting back upright. “You’re going to have to talk me through this one.”

“‘Imposters.’ I-M-P-O-S-T- _E_ -R-S.” Blue tapped the paper, voice rising in agitation. “It’s spelled with an O, Green. It’s always been spelled with an O.”

Green stared at him.

“Are you _kidding_ me?” Her own voice rose and cracked, incredulous. “You woke me up to tell me Mira HQ made a fucking _typo_?! It’s not even wrong, it’s an alternate spelling -”

“Which Mira _doesn’t use_ -”

“- and I thought we were under attack, but you’re here playing _grammar police_ -”

“ _I know how it sounds!_ ” Blue screamed, shaking the printout in her face - no, Green realised, a pang of guilt twisting in her stomach, he wasn’t shaking it _at_ her, he was just shaking. All over. Damn it. She’d just been thinking how considerate he was being, doing his best not to trigger her into a panic over something small, and here she was yelling at him for having his own irrational terrors to deal with. “I _want_ to be wrong, Green! I _want_ to believe this is all in my head, but I _can’t_!” The last word broke into a sob, and he doubled over, head in his hands, the printout crumpled against his helmet.

“Blue…” Green stood, moved to go to his side, then caught herself. “Can I sit with you?” Blue gave a small nod, and Green settled onto the mattress beside him. “Blue, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I know better. We both just went through hell together, and we’re jumping at shadows now because any tiny thing that seemed _off_ before could have been the thing that got us killed. It makes total sense that you’re freaking out over this.”

Blue nodded again, swallowing hard. “Y-yeah. You don’t… have to apologise, I know it sounds dumb, but…”

“It’s not dumb. But it’s not going to hurt you, Blue, I swear. It’s just a typo. Or someone forgot which spelling was the official one. Or - hell, maybe it’s the Berenstain effect. I wanna say it was always O-R too, but we could both be wrong -”

“But that’s just it!” Blue’s head snapped up, eyes meeting Green’s through their visors. Wide and dark, ringed by black circles that Green was sure matched her own. Neither one of them had slept well in some time. “I _hoped_ I was remembering it wrong. So I checked.” He reached into his pack again, this time pulling out a whole stack of crumpled printouts. He handed the top one to Green. “See, this is the first message we got from HQ once we arrived here.”

Green scanned down the paper, her eyes quickly drawn to a single red-ringed word in the list of potential hazards. _Impostor_.

“They all say O-R. See, here - and here - and here.” Blue handed the papers to Green as he spoke, and her eyes flicked over them, finding the circled word each time. _Impostor. Impostor. Impostor_.

“What would it _mean_ , though?” She dropped the papers onto the bed, hoping her voice sounded more confident than she felt but knowing the waver in it was audible. Blue’s panic was getting to her, that was all. She had to stay calm and rational, for his sake too. “Even if the latest one’s wrong, all it is is a typo -”

“But it’s not just the latest one.” Blue passed her another paper from the stack. His hands were steady now, his voice firmer. He pointed to the top of the page. “Look at the date on this one.”

“Morning of the thirteenth. The day after the first attack.” Green looked down the paper, finding the red ring. _O-R_.

“Yeah. And after we got this one -” Blue snapped his fingers, the sound sharp and jarring in the quiet room. “Comms went down for about five hours.” He handed over the next printout. “This arrived the next day.”

Green stared at the red circle. The date. The red circle again. A cold knot began to form in her stomach.

_Imposter_.

“That’s -” Green’s mouth was dry. _Just a typo. It has to be_. “That isn’t…”

Blue placed the last two papers gently in her lap. “See for yourself. Every message from after the comms blackout spells _imposter_ with an E. Everything before spells it with an O. And I know this still doesn’t prove anything. I _know_ that. I don’t _want_ it to prove anything other than I need to spend some time with a shrink once we get back to HQ. But ...remember what Pink said once he got us back online?”

The papers slid down from Green’s lap to the floor. She didn’t reach for them. Her hands were numb.

“He said…” The ball of ice lodged in her stomach grew heavier. “ _Give Purple some credit, too. It would’ve taken me all night without her help._ ” Her insides suddenly clenched tight, and she doubled up, pressing a hand to her visor and trying with all her might not to retch into her helmet. “That - oh, god, and that was why we didn’t suspect her for so long… I thought she’d done it just to throw us off the scent…”

“So did I.” Blue gathered up the fallen papers and straightened them into a pile. His voice was flat, now, his face grim behind his visor. “Maybe she did. I really, really don’t want to be right about this, Green.”

Green nodded, clutching at the fabric of her suit to keep her own hands from trembling. She didn’t want Blue to be right, either. She didn’t want to learn the answers to the two questions spinning round her head, the answers six hours away and getting closer all the time.

_Who exactly have our messages been reaching?_

_Who’s coming for us in that ship?_

**Author's Note:**

> it’s ‘impostor’ in-game, but as Green points out, both spellings are correct. This fic isn’t meant to mock anyone for using either one. I just really like the trope where a seemingly unimportant detail turns out to be _extremely_ important after all.


End file.
